Ralph Brown

[Mavric]

Quote

Former Nebraska Cornhuskers cornerback Ralph Brown wasn’t supposed to get out of California, but in 1996 when he made a visit to Lincoln for the first time, he realized there was something out there he could never find in the sunny confines of the West Coast.

 

Snow.

 

Brown visited during a snowy weekend in 1996. One of the nation’s best players at Bishop Amat, a USA Today All-America, a two-way star as a running back and a defensive back, Brown was a top target for Tom Osborne and Nebraska. However, there was a little concern the weather might either prevent Brown from staying interested or even arriving. It did neither. It actually made him more interested.

“Coach Osborne was pretty saddened and thought ‘I probably lost one of my top recruits in Ralph Brown,’ but the one thing coach Osborne didn’t know was that I always wanted to play college football in the snow and in cold weather,” he said. “It’s interesting coming from California. Going that weekend to Nebraska there was snow and a blizzard and it made me picture and see myself playing on Saturday in snow and tackling people. Just picturing myself playing in Memorial Stadium. That snow actually helped my trip to Nebraska.”

 

It didn’t hurt either that Nebraska was coming off back-to-back national championships and the Huskers were going to need to replace quite a few talented defensive backs.

 

However, Brown was instantly smitten with Lincoln — though he admits he expected it to look and feel a lot different than it did.

 

“My judgements on Nebraska is that it’d be in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of cornfields and a California guy may not like it out there,” he said. “That was the exact opposite. I really loved everything that Nebraska brought to the table. Smaller town. I wanted to get away from California and do something different.”

 

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